2017 Draft - Draft Notes

Good morning.

Kendall Rogers‏ - @KendallRogersD1 -  TCU RHP Jared Janczak could miss at least another three or four weeks with some arm tenderness.

Mack – Janczak was pitching exceptionally well this season and has a stat line of 6-0, 2.25, 60-IP, 63-K. My guess is he would have been drafted in the round 5-7 range, which could be lowered now due to this arm tenderness. It also could take him out of post season play. A shame.

South Carolina RHP Clarke Schmidt suffered a torn UCL and is out for the season

Mack – This is very bad news both for the Gamecocks and Schmidt’s 2017 draft status. He easily would have been one of the top 20 picks in June’s draft. I expect someone will pick him now in the top 100 picks, but there is also a good chance he will return to South Carolina for his senior year.

         Sports Illustrated has a feature on odds on favorite number one pick this year SI -

           Hunter Greene stands 6' 4" and 210 pounds, hits baseballs 450 feet, throws them 102 mph and gloves them just about anywhere left of second base. When he steps to the plate in batting practice, outfielders shout warnings to the soccer players working out on the adjacent football field, lest they take unexpected headers. At 17, Greene has sent balls out of Petco Park in San Diego and Wrigley Field in Chicago, which is not to imply that he simply deposited them over the fence with a souped-up metal bat. No, he put them out of the stadium completely, with nothing but muscle and wood.

Mack – There is absolutely no way this kid isn’t picked first in the draft… as a pitcher. I don’t care home many balls he hits out of major league baseball fields (thrown by batting practice pitchers at 55-mph). Baseball players that can throw a 102 mile per hour fastball become a pitcher until their arm falls off. Once that happens, we’ll give him his bat back.

Greene is also the kind of ballplayer that is the reason you can’t trade the first pick in the draft. If you could, Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg would never have worn a Nationals uniform. Players like this usually come around once a decade (Harper and Strasburg were in back-to-back years in 2008 and 2009) and could easily bring you another team’s number one pick that year, plus two other quality players.

Move on to the rest of the draft. This kid is Twins bound.

Louisville’s Brandan McKay hit four home runs on Tuesday against Easter Kentucky… and he’s a left handed pitcher!

                       Mack – I take that back… maybe Hunter Greene isn’t a lock at 1-1.

                       McKay also plays first base (like he did on Tuesday) and third when he’s not the ‘Friday starters’. Going into this game, he had a .388 average, had hit seven homers, and had a pitching stat line of 5-3, 1.83.

                   You figure out which one of these two-way players should go 1-2 in the draft. Either way, these are two very special players.     

                   Carlos Collazo‏  - @CarlosACollazo  -  McCarthy HS RHP/INF Joe Perez hits a huge HR to left-center in a 5-1 win Thursday night. He's the No. 42 prospect on our Top 100.

                   Mack –  I’ve currently got Perez in the 4^th/5^th round range of the upcoming June draft.